Industrial Action Ballot Called at Daily Record

Members of the National Union of Journalists at the Daily Record and Sunday Mail are to be balloted on taking industrial action.

Voting papers expected to go out by the end of the week will offer the options of ‘strike action’ and also ‘industrial action short of a strike’ amid concerns about insufficient staff.

Says the union’s Scottish Organiser, Paul Holleran: “Vacancies are not being filled, there are not enough sub-editors, people have had enough covering for a lack of staff.”

It’s been a turbulent few days for the company, staff-wise. Last week, a former executive features editor at the Record, who had been long-term ill, agreed an ‘out-of-court’ settlement with the company, just days into what had been expected to be a two week-long employment tribunal called by her, with the backing of the NUJ, on various, alleged discrimination grounds.

Said Holleran: “I believe there’s cost-cutting to try and impress the City with a view to driving the share price back up. [Scotsman publishers] Johnston Press and [Record and Sunday Mail publishers] Trinity are both doing it. But what they both should be doing is ignoring the share price and concentrating on maintaining their already healthy profits, using quality products.”

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